|
An important milestone in the APS renewal was achieved on May 31, 2009, when we submitted a proposal to the Department of Energy (DOE) for approval of Critical Decision 0: Mission Need (CD-0).(You can see a detailed summary of what has been done to date in the Renewal News box on the Renewal home page.) As we continue on the task of defining the APS renewal, it is our goal to engage all our users and we welcome input from the entire APS community.You may address your comments or questions on the process itself to any of the steering committee members (see the list on this page) or directly to me. To maintain the momentum while we await the outcome of the DOE review of our CD-0 proposal, we are organizing six working groups comprising APS users and staff to flesh out the beamline aspects of the renewal. Their primary role will be to develop more detailed plans or options (including better cost/effort estimates) from the ideas already presented. Once we have permission to move forward, we will launch an open planning phase to develop a conceptual design. The renewal planning will be the major focus of the next meeting of the APS Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) on October 8 and 9, 2009. After comments and suggestions from the SAC, we will, over the next several months, further vet the list of beamlines with larger groups from the user community in order to complete a conceptual design report and a more detailed cost estimate. These will be needed for the approval of the next step in the DOE project process, Critical Decision 1. |